We are about to go to pick up Ally from his delayed train; it was due at about 11 p.m. but is now arriving at Motherwell at two minutes past midnight. He’s going to be in Scotland on business for a couple of days and it will be lovely to see him.
Postcards from Susan and Family in Scotland
Our life in Scotland in the early 21st century
Wednesday 13 March 2024
Dune 2
Tuesday 12 March 2024
Alpaca Trekking and cute Harris
We have had such a great day. We went Alpaca Trekking at a farm near Blanefield, using the voucher that Gordon gave me for my 60th birthday. We have tried to book the session before but it was delayed twice by adverse weather. Coincidentally we had dinner at Gordon’s last night with Morag, John and Donna, he cooked us a delicious meal and we had a very pleasant evening.
The Alpaca Trekking was great fun. We were introduced to our two alpacas, who were called Tim and Steve. It was just us and their trainer who was called Fiona. It took a few minutes for the alpacas to get used to us leading them, and they kept stopping, but Fiona told us to pull them gently by their leads, and they started following us along. We walked with them for an hour in lovely countryside, they have a fantastic life on the farm. Fiona told us all about their diet and their habits. They like rolling in dust and Tim had a wee roll at one point during the walk. Every time they saw long enough grass they would stop to munch it; when we encouraged them to move on they ignored us but when Fiona spoke to them they would start walking again. I think that they could tell that we had no experience with their species! Tim was a beautiful caramel colour with big eyes and long eyelashes, while Steve was creamy white and had a quizzical expression. In the animal world they are closely related to camels and their fur is incredibly thick. It was a most enjoyable experience.
This evening I popped round to Carolyn and Euan’s for dinner, they made a very tasty quorn curry. Harris is two and a half now and is absolutely gorgeous and very, very sweet natured. He’s clever too; his speech and vocabulary are excellent. He showed me his toys and took my temperature using his toy first aid kit. When he ate his dinner he put each spoonful to his teddy’s mouth first. I left before his bedtime so that the family could get on with their evening routine and he gave me a hug goodbye. Carolyn and Euan’s new baby is due at the beginning of July, I think that Harris is going to be a very loving big brother.
Sunday 10 March 2024
Mothers’ Day
What a lovely Mother’s Day I have had. When I got back in from doing a bit of grocery shopping I found that a beautiful box of flowers had been delivered from Ally, really fresh and carefully packaged. There were all sorts of delicate spring flowers; tulips, hyacinths, roses, with small shiny leaved foliage. I put them into my crystal jug and they look wonderful.
Later, Davie and Chanel came round with a tasty curry for dinner. They also brought flowers, beautiful bright yellow and orange gerbera daisies and green chrysanthemums, and a box of Guylain chocolates. We enjoyed our curry mightily and then sat chatting in the lounge. Tom and Flora were delighted to see Davie and Chanel, as were we! A delightful evening to round off a great Mother’s Day.
Saturday 9 March 2024
Jonathan Pie
I went to see Jonathan Pie, Heroes and Villains, this evening with Gordon and his friend Lorna from his hill-walking club. Jonathan Pie is actually a persona created by comedian Tom Walker. He is very political, cleverly lambasting all of the politicians, especially the Tories. He went on long quick fire rants which had the audience laughing uproariously. And the end of his act was very clever too, he sort of switched around to revealing his own hypocrisy which was very funny. We were asked at the beginning not to take photos but inevitably someone did, and he stopped the show, genuinely angry, and called him all sort of names! I hadn’t been aware of Jonathan Pie before Gordon invited me along, but I was very impressed and would definitely go to see him again.
Friday 8 March 2024
OMD again!
The highlight of today was going to see OMD at the Royal Concert Hall. We went for dinner to Ask Italian beforehand and it was really busy, I was very glad that I had booked. The service was reasonable though, and we had plenty of time to meet Gerry and Janis for drinks and a chat before the concert. Gerry and Janis are also big fans of OMD, their favourite song is Enola Gay. It was lovely to see them and to catch up on their news. The concert was great. They have so many good songs. I’m sure that I have previously written on my blog that my absolute favourite song is Pandora’s Box, closely followed by Maid of Orleans. James’ favourite is Souvenir. When we left the concert our ears felt quite deafened by the music, although not to the same extent as when we saw Idlewild at Ullapool Village Hall!
Thursday 7 March 2024
An Officer and a Gentleman - The Musical
It was with the usual mixed feelings that we set off south to Glasgow this morning; sorry to leave the cottage but glad to return home. I do find it a bit confusing to divide myself between two locations. We had done all of our cleaning and packing the day before, so the cats had forgotten their suspicions by the morning and it was a very calm departure for all of us; by the time that Tom and Floof realised that we were about to leave we were carrying them out to the car. As is usual on the way south, James drove the first part on the more windy roads towards Inverness so that Flora could sit on my knee; this prevents her from being sick. We stopped briefly at HIS (Highland Industrial Supplies) in Inverness because James needed to exchange an ashes tray that he had bought for the fire in Cambulang. Flora went into the cat crate without protest and the journey went smoothly. In the evening I met Heather for dinner at Antipasti in Pitt Street before we went to the King's Theatre to see An Officer and a Gentleman, the Musical. It was a great deal of fun; the cast were great and although it did not have an original score it used various 80s songs that were appropriate to the plot. By the end we all cheered and sang along as the young officer appeared to carry his girl out of the factory! We had to move seats at the interval because the people on both sides of us were so “circumferentially challenged” (as my old colleague Des used to say) that they were literally overlapping into our seats! Luckily there were some empty seats in the row behind us. Interestingly, the lady in front of us had an emotional support dog with her. I know that these are used nowadays but it's the first time that I have seen one. She was lifting it up to let it lick her face, which I think is disgusting, my parents never allowed us to do that when we had dogs in the 1970s because it's not hygienic. I don't doubt that a very few people genuinely need support animals, but I suspect that many others have simply leapt into the bandwagon. Heather commented, "Now I've seen it all!"
Tuesday 5 March 2024
Opera in Poolewe
This afternoon we headed south to Gairloch, a pleasant drive that took us about and hour and a quarter. It was a fine, blustery day and we went for a bracing walk on Big Sand bay, from which we could see many mountains, on the mainland, on Skye and, barely visible in the distance, on Harris. We had a pub tea in the Millcroft Hotel which was nothing special but perfectly acceptable. The pub was very quiet, but we were lucky to find it because all the other restaurants in Gairloch are still closed for the winter. From there were travelled the short distance (about 10 minutes) to Poolewe Village Hall, where we had booked tickets to a Scottish Opera Highlights evening. The theme was love, and they had constructed a very loose plot about staff and guests at a wedding to give it a bit of structure. There were a couple of organisers taking the tickets, a piano player, and four excellent singers. They sang a variety of arias and duets and a few quartets, some of which were very familiar to us and some less so. It was a great evening. We set off back to Ullapool on the dark roads. There were a few other cars whose occupants had been at the concert, but by Aultbea the last of them had peeled off and we didn’t see any other cars at all, all the way to Ullapool. We did however see lots of deer at the roadside, so I had to drive very carefully so as not to hit any of them.